French Formula 3 1979

France's FFSA introduced a Formula 3 championship for 1979, due to run over 12 rounds, including four rounds of the European F3 championship, Monaco, and seven domestic races, one of which would be a support race for the French Grand Prix at Dijon on 1 July. Only French drivers could score points, and they were expected to be on Michelintyres, at least for the domestic races. However, there was very little support from French drivers, and Alain Prost, who was dominant in the European F3 series that year, was the only Frenchman to finish in the top ten at either of the first two Euro rounds. After the first domestic race was very poorly-supported, the next two domestic races evaporated, including the support race for the French Grand Prix. The series finally picked up again after a four-month break with the European F3 race at Jarama at the start of September, and concluded with two more minor races over the next two weekends, but two more events planned for October also failed to take place. One of the International races may have been dropped from the French championship, because it is hard to make sense out of the points table published in Sport Auto. Autosport's detailed coverage of F3 in 1979 made no mention of a French championship, referring only to the European, British, Italian, German and Swiss. Neither Echappement nor Sport Auto made any mention of it during the season.

Alain Prost won the title with maximum points in his Renault-engined Martini MK27, run for him by Oreca with lavish funding from ELF and the full backing of Regie Renault. Prost's engines were even more powerful than they had been in 1978, with Gordini sparing no expense on the development of the aluminium block engine. Other drivers had Renault engines, but none of them were anything like Prost's. He won Monaco, the Euro rounds at Zolder, Magny Cours, and Jarama, and all three of the domestic races. Philippe Strieff was the only other top driver to participate regularly in the championship, also in a Martini MK27, but he changed his significantly less 'special' Renault powerplant for a regular Novamotor Toyota engine. It appears that he did not use the right Michelin in the final two 'home' races, so lost almost half his points score. Other drivers were also recorded as having less points than would be expected, but the reasons are unclear.

The research

The 1979 results have been compiled by Chris Townsend using original period documents, including organisers' results sheets and practice times, and annotated programmes, plus reports in Sport Auto, Auto Hebdo and Echappement as well as some reports in the main British magazines Autosport and Motoring News.

Please get in touch if you have any F3 entry lists, programs or official results hand-outs.

March chassis records and the observations made at the time by Adam Ferrington when the cars came to English races allow a lot of the F3 cars of this period to be identified.